You can do all the right things and still catch a cold. But when you go as wrong as humanly possible and still come through clean, further study is warranted.

I recently spent a rare weekend away from home playing golf with a group of friends. The weekend was preceded by several days of difficult work to avoid the nasty cold virus that had invaded my wife and two of our daughters.

It was the kind of cold that leaves the uninfected spouse at the farthermost edge of the mattress breathing through his T-shirt.

I have a mucus-covered history of coming down with anything and everything my kids bring home from school. If it were not for NyQuil and ibuprofen, the preschool years might well have been fatal for me.

I've done everything short of wearing a hazmat suit to avoid being infected. The evasive maneuvers always fail.

During the latest battle, I employed the usual tactics. I washed my hands, cranked up the dishwasher to "very hot," opened the windows, steered clear of sneezes, sprayed down the doorknobs and loaded up on vitamins.

Miracle of miracles, I left town on Friday disease free.

It is well documented that toothbrushes have great potential for spreading known diseases and several others that medical science has not yet identified.

The Centers for Disease Control, in fact, warns against sharing toothbrushes, because the exchange of body fluids from such a practice could increase the risk of infections.

Most married couples do not share toothbrushes. All married people, however, occasionally return their toothbrush to the stand only to discover it is not theirs at all.

I'm enough of a germ freak to be horrified by that experience even when my wife is well.

Kissing my wife is truly a beautiful experience. But put her toothbrush in my mouth, and it might as well belong to the neighbor's cat.

When I came home on Sunday, the coughing and carrying on had not subsided. The virus remained firmly attached to my house and family.

That night, I brushed my teeth and crawled out onto my edge of the mattress.

When I went to brush my teeth in the morning, the toothbrush was not there. My wife had carried it upstairs. Which made sense.

It belongs to her.

I had mistakenly used her germ-laden instrument. Mine was still packed inside my shaving kit.

As if it weren't bad enough that I'd used the wrong toothbrush, I had actually gone to sleep without the benefit of that knowledge.

The germs had spent all night incubating unchallenged inside my person.

All day Monday, I was sure my throat was beginning to tickle.

But midweek came and the terrible cold I was anticipating never materialized.

It is a miracle.

Either that or something unusual was going on that helped me build the antibodies needed to ward off the common cold.

So what was I doing that was out of the ordinary? Could it be that the weeklong anticipation of playing golf made me a healthier person?

There must be further study. The answer could be years, and many golf courses, away.

Mark Rutledge can be contacted at mrutledge@coxnc.com